Latest Articles

Go East, Young Consumer

In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain came up, signaling the end of the Cold War, the fall of communism — and a new era for the environment in Central and Eastern Europe. Popular belief holds that the curtain rose to reveal a bleak landscape of environmental degradation wrought by unchecked […]

Fire Walk With Me

Fires being deliberately set all across Africa are having a dire effect on the continent’s ecosystems, a wildlife expert warned during a recent U.N. Environment Programme conference on African mountains. Many different groups are responsible for setting the fires, said Kenya Wildlife Service warden Bongo Woodley. These include arsonists hoping the government will give them […]

Sur Prize

Almost 10,000 acres of California’s Big Sur, encompassing mountains, old-growth redwood forests, and dramatic vistas on the coast, will be protected in perpetuity thanks to a land purchase sealed yesterday by the Nature Conservancy and the Big Sur Land Trust. The land connects 13 wilderness areas and parks, and was the missing link in a […]

Un-Fortuyn-ate

Dutch prosecutors are accusing an animal rights activist with the murder on Monday of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing candidate for prime minister. The suspect, Volkert van der Graaf, opposed factory farming and fur farms and worked for the little-known group Environment-Offensive, which uses legal tactics to advances its cause (rather than the in-your-face, direct-action methods […]

Mountain Mama’s Day

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday to stop allowing coal companies to deposit tons of dirt and rock from their mountaintop-removal mining operations into streams and valleys. U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II in Charleston, W.Va., also said a move by the Bush administration last Friday to make the “valley […]

Toxics: Australian for Fertilizer

Businesses across Australia are legally disposing of their industrial waste by selling it as fertilizers for farms and home gardens, according to an investigative report by the Sydney Morning Herald. The fertilizers often contain such toxic metals as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and lead. In western Australia, radioactive material from aluminum refineries is being used at […]

Metals in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands?

The American Environmental Safety Institute (first we’ve heard of it) sued Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and other chocolate manufacturers yesterday for not disclosing that their products contain toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, as required under California law. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the group said that the levels of […]

Mr. Yucca

The U.S. House voted 306 to 117 yesterday to move forward with the Bush administration’s plan to store the nation’s nuclear waste under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The overwhelming vote — which overrode the veto of the plan by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) — was expected. Now the battle moves to the Senate, where Majority […]

Cell Outs

If you count yourself among the cell-phone-hating masses (and doesn’t almost everyone at least claim to, even if owning one on the sly?), here’s more fuel for your fire: Within three years, Americans alone will discard about 130 million cellular telephones annually, generating 65,000 tons of toxic trash, according to a recent report. On average, […]

The Lion Sleeps Better Tonight

A new economic model that uses cost-benefit analyses to predict the fate of endangered species has been unveiled by New Zealand economist Robert Alexander and researcher Chris Fleming. The model analyzes the socio-economic pressures that push animals to the brink of extinction and could be used to assess the probable success or failure of conservation […]